Antwerp: Protesters chant ‘Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas'

THE HAGUE - Belgian extreme-right and extreme-left activists participated in a demonstration on Sunday afternoon in Antwerp where some participants reportedly called for Jews to be gassed.

Approximately 150 demonstrators gathered outside the Provinciehuis, a concert hall in the Flemish capital, to protest the Israel Defense Forces Orchestra’s performance there, according to the online edition of the Flemish-Jewish magazine Joods Actueel.

Several demonstrators can be heard chanting “Hamas, Hamas, all Jews to the gas” in recordings from the demonstration, which Joods Actueel posted on its news website. They will be filed to police along with an official complaint over hate speech, the paper reported.

6. Disgusting. SHOULD be roundly criticized by EVERYONE, without exception. nt

7. Belgium has a lot of racists

A few years ago, we were in Brussels and walking down the street to go to dinner. An older, fairly distinguished looking man in a trench coat called me over and (in French) said to me, "That man you're with. Do you know him? He's kind dark." I was flabbergasted and sputtered out, "He's my husband." (My husband is not that "dark." He does have very dark hair, what's left of it, and is, yes, a Jew. Though the man might just as well thought he was Arab.) "Well," the man responded, "we don't like those types here." I made a face and muttered "that's disgusting," then went over to my husband, put my hand through his arm, and walked away.

8. We should not be surprised to see some European activists are grotesque racists.

However, because the fact that they paint all Jews, inside and outside of Israel with the same brush, doesn't mean all those in opposition to Israel's military policy should not be painted with the same brush.

According to the story, out of 150 demonstrators, "Several demonstrators can be heard chanting “Hamas, Hamas, all Jews to the gas.” Now, because several chanted, that doesn't mean that the entire group of 150 were in accord with them.

Occupy demonstrations in the U.S. have shown us that not all demonstrators are of one mind. Black Bloc anarchists often demonstrated with Occupy, and they were not in line with the majority.

This news release appears to be written more as propaganda than as a real report on the situation in Antwerp.

9. In many European countries this conflict has become a far left vs far right issue..

that they use to provoke each other. This kind if moronic chanting was probably done by the left to piss the right off. Still, it is totally inexcusable and in exceptionally bad taste.

I would argue that for many of these people the issue has been detatched from the conflict itself, so it's not really about the current conflict at all. It is about provoking a reaction from the people on the other side.

The European far left now mostly support the Palestinians regardless of who are in charge there, whereas the far right now supports Israel regardless of what government they have. There is something absurd about right wingers now feeling the urge to support Israel, its obvious to me that they only do it because their hatred of arabs and muslims is even worse.

And it is equally odd that people on the far left blindly support even the most extremist muslims despite them being authoritarian, treats their women like shit and hates gays as much as a nazi would.

Even Anders Behring Breivik, the mass murderer in Norway is a big supporter of Israel.

10. This has the feeling of being only half the story

I wanted to find out what this peculiar alliance of "extreme-right and extreme-left activists" amounted to -- but all I could turn up by googling was that the protest was the work of something called the Arab European League. According to Wikipedia, "The AEL describes itself as Nasserite, Pan-Arabist and anti-Zionist. The group expresses support for the actions of Islamist 'resistance' against the occupation of Iraq and approves the killings of coalition soldiers."

So -- not a friendly bunch, but except for that one Jerusalem Post story, there's no indication of either right-wing- or left-wing groups participating.

Another odd thing was that I found a couple of lurid descriptions of the protest being followed by rioters rampaging through Jewish neighborhoods and causing significant property damage to the point where residents were afraid to leave their homes. But the links led to a "no such page" address at the conservative Gateway Pundit blog -- and going to the blog's front page shows no entry on the subject. So either somebody's pulling a hoax or the blog put up an unverified rumor and quickly deleted it.

Either way, it looks like Israeli propaganda media are pushing the Hamas=Nazis meme very hard, but the actual incident seemingly doesn't amount to much or tell us anything about the attitudes of Hamas itself.

17. Jerusalem Post is a far right paper

I remember they had an op-ed after Anders Behring Breiviks rampage in Norway gloating that now the people on the left in Norway know what it feels like to be victims of terrorism - this about the Norwegian labour party which traditionally has been staunchly pro Israel.